Alternatives to Taormina: every coastal town in Sicily, in one list

Lipari

Province: Messina · 44 m

The largest Aeolian island and the only municipality that administers six of the seven, with a clifftop castle citadel rising above two harbors.

Savoca

Province: Messina · 300 m

30m from Taormina by car

A hilltop borgo at 300 meters above the Ionian, its ridge lined with stepped lanes and balconied stone houses.

Realmonte

Province: Agrigento · 153 m

2h 58m from Taormina by car

The Agrigento coast commune with the white marl cliff of the Scala dei Turchi and a salt mine carved into 5-million-year-old halite.

Castelmola

Province: Messina · 529 m

27m from Taormina by car

A rock village at 529 meters directly above Taormina, the upper acropolis of ancient Tauromenium with a Norman castle and a 1947 almond-wine bar.

Forza d'Agrò

Province: Messina · 420 m

48m from Taormina by car

A ridge village of 835 people at 420 meters above the Ionian, its Norman fortress silhouette gave the place its name centuries before a film crew arrived.

Castroreale

Province: Messina · 394 m

1h 40m from Taormina by car

A ridge town at 394 meters above the Milazzo plain, holding the royal name given to it in the fourteenth century and a second-place finish in the 2018 Borgo dei Borghi.

Pantelleria

Province: Trapani · 8 m

A volcanic island closer to Tunisia than Sicily, where dry-stone dammusi sit among bush-trained Zibibbo vines listed by UNESCO.

Menfi

Province: Agrigento · 119 m

4h 9m from Taormina by car

Sicily's triple-signal western coast town: 11,800 residents on a low ridge above 9 km of protected sand at Porto Palo, backed by cellars and olive groves that between them carry Italy's three major small-town quality marks.

San Vito Lo Capo

Province: Trapani · 5 m

5h 15m from Taormina by car

A three-kilometer white-sand beach at Sicily's northwest tip, the town that turned cous cous into a September festival.

Lampedusa e Linosa

Province: Agrigento · 25 m

Italy's southernmost comune, three islands on the African continental shelf, closer to Tunisia than to Sicily.